Elections in Chile: The Road Toward Redemocratization 9781685851576

Citation preview

Elections in

CHILE

Elections in

CHILE

The Road Toward Redemocratization César N. Caviedes

Lynne Rienner Publishers

• Boulder & London

Published in the United States of America in 1991 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1991 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Caviedes, César, 1936Elections in Chile : the road toward redemocratization / by César N. Caviedes. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-218-2 1. Elections—Chile. I. Title. JL2692.C38 1991 324.983'065—dc20 91-7296 COP British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Contents

List of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations Preface 1 Resuming Electoral Politics

vi viii ix 1

2 The Last Predictatorship Elections

15

3 Depoliticization and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

27

4 The Elections of 1989

55

5 Regional and Gender Variations of Electoral Support

97

6 The Emergence of New Party Strategies Appendix Selected Bibliography Index About the Book and the Author

123 140 147 152 156

Tables and Figures

Tables 3.1 3.2

Results of the 1988 Plebiscite, by Administrative Region 37 Approval for the Officialist Constitution in 1980 and Support for Pinochet in 1988 43 3.3 Voting Forecasts by Polling Agencies Prior to the October 5, 1988, Plebiscite 46 3.4 Number of Voters Represented per Deputy in the 120 Districts of Chile 50 4.1 Presidential Vote Forecasts of Polls Conducted Before December 12, 1989 73 4.2 Number of Deputies Elected by Contending Coalitions 85 4.3 Effects of the 66 Percent Qause on Chamber Races 90 4.4 Professional Background of Senators and Deputies in the 1989-1994 Congress 91 5.1 Percentages of Support for the Opposition and Corresponding Coefficients of Dominance, by Region 99 A. 1 Results of the 1988 Plebiscite, by Chosen Alternative and Gender 141 A.2 Results of the December 1989 Presidential, Senate, and Chamber Elections, by Coalition or Bloc and Gender 142

Figures 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2

Regional Outcome of the 1988 Plebiscite, Northern Regions Regional Outcome of the 1988 Plebiscite, Core Regions Regional Outcome of the 1988 Plebiscite, Central Southern Regions Regional Outcome of the 1988 Plebiscite, Southern Regions The 1988 Plebiscite's No Vote by Region and Gender Election 1989 Presidential Vote, Northern Regions Election 1989 Presidential Vote, Core Regions

38 39 39 40 41 75 76

List of Tables and Figures

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11

Election 1989 Presidential Vote, Central Southern Regions Election 1989 Presidential Vote, Southern Regions Election 1989 Senate Races, Northern Regions Election 1989 Senate Races, Core Regions Election 1989 Senate Races, Central Southern Regions Election 1989 Senate Races, Southern Regions Election 1989 Chamber of Deputies Races, Northern Regions Election 1989 Chamber of Deputies Races, Core Regions Election 1989 Chamber of Deputies Races, Central Southern Regions 4.12 Election 1989 Chamber of Deputies Races, Southern Regions 5.1 Women Voters as a Percentage of the National Electorate 5.2 Percentage of Women Voters in Four Electoral Contests, by Region 5.3 Coefficients of Dominance for Officialism in Three Electoral Contests, by Region

vii

76 77 80 81 81 82 86 87 87 88 116 116 118

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations for political party names are those used in Chile, and thus they reflect not the English but the Spanish party names. AN-DR MAPU MIR PAIS PPD PRSD RN UDI

National Action-Radical Democracy Pact Unified Movement of Popular Action Movement of the Revolutionary Left Broad Party of the Socialist Left Party for Democracy Social Democratic Radical party National Renovation Movement Independent Democratic Union

viii

Preface

When, in December 1989, the Chilean people went to the polls to elect a new president and Congress, they ended by sovereign will 16 years of military rule—the longest dictatorship in 180 years of independent republican life. Thus, without bloodshed and with an exemplary degree of civility, Chileans returned to a connatural political modus vivendi and revealed that their political spirit was still very much alive. Nineteen eighty-nine will appear in the history of this century as the year in which the oppressed in many parts of this planet woke up, rose, and challenged—in different ways— rulers whose legitimacy was doubtful. The collapse of self-declared democracies in Eastern Europe, the rebellion of the Chinese people, and the elections in Chile and Nicaragua should be considered as master episodes through which people spoke their wishes and tried to change the political course of their respective nations away from rigid authoritarian rule. In some lucky countries, Chile among them, the will to freedom prevailed. The Chilean elections mark an important milestone, for they represent the ultimate move in deposing illegitimate rulers. Just nine years before, only Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador were not ruled dictatorially. Gone now are Stroessner (Paraguay), Pinochet (Chile), Videla and Galtieri (Argentina), Costa e Silva and Garrastazu Medici (Brazil), Pacheco Areco (Uruguay), Velasco Alvarado (Peru), Banzer (Bolivia), and other figures who seized power, or stayed in power, by undemocratic means and imposed coercive regimes. Only Fidel Castro (in power since 1959) remains, sharing fame and repute with Kim D Sung of North Korea (since 1972) and Enver Hoxha of Albania (1944-1982). This book documents 16 years of political struggle in Chile from the perspective of electoral politics and voters' responses. The purpose here is to remedy a shortcoming in the political literature by looking closely at the decisions taken by an electorate once it has pondered all the propositions offered by parties contending in free elections. Beyond considering the ideological underpinnings and environmental circumstances that surround elections, this book is an attempt to unveil the patent regional and gender differences that are typically not explicitly revealed in general electoral results. In the analysis of popular decisions these details are important ix

X

Preface

because they faithfully express how people choose a particular political option, why some parties fail to elicit positive voter responses regardless of the justifications for their actions, and where certain parties or groups of opinion are more successful in their bids for power. In 1979 I published The Politics of Chile: A Sociogeographical Assessment, in which a similar treatment was applied to the presidential and congressional elections in Chile from 1932 through 1973. In that book I demonstrated, first, that the voters' response in a vast and variegated country such as Chile proved not as homogeneous as some writers had led us to believe, and that electoral decisions could not be explained by ideology alone but were also determined by ecological circumstances. Second, I maintained that in their electoral trajectories contemporary Chilean parties had always had their ups and downs, depending on popular preferences. It has never been easy to reach power or to retain it. Parties have had to compete fiercely for a clientele that could not be taken for granted and was well aware of its power "to crown and dethrone kings." As political parties became more sophisticated in ideology and methods, the electorate became more demanding and evasive. This book picks up where the other left off—with the electoral debate and public electoral practices that were interrupted in 1973 by the military takeover—to follow the fortunes of parties, political figures, and the electorate from 1973 until 1989. During that period the electoral contest was restricted to two major contenders: the oficialismo, which refers to all the government organs and groups of opinion that supported the rule of General Augusto Pinochet; and the opposition, which rallied the traditional parties from before 1973, plus a few new ones formed after 1988, with the aim of dethroning Pinochet with the constitutional tools available to them. Officialism is not a concept commonly used in Angloamerican political language, but in Latin America, and particularly in Pinochet's Chile, oficialismo has come to define very clearly the social philosophy, political ideals, and authoritarian governing style of those who wielded power from 1973 to 1989. A good deal of the existing literature on authoritarian Chile employs the term with this connotation because it expresses best the whole atmosphere surrounding the foimer rulers and makes it easier for a reader who might feel so inclined to investigate Chilean sources. In the elaboration of this book, original electoral records and the most recent reports in Chilean newspapers and magazines have been utilized. While the literature on the authoritarian period and the fate of, and debate among, the political actors who crashed in 1973 is abundant, the sources, commentaries, and interpretation of the electoral debate and electoral results are scarce and fragmentary. I am grateful to Lynne Rienner for recognizing this gap in the political literature on Latin America and for her enthusiasm in publishing this sequel to The Politics of Chile—another book that owed its publication to her personal engagement.

Preface

xi

My wife, Christiana, contributed with exemplary dedication to the shaping of this book. My appreciation goes also to my son, Alexander, who has applied his political science and history studies of Latin America and his native country and made valuable suggestions to improve the book. Dolores Jenkins read this work and made editorial improvements with her habitual sharpness. The figures were developed by Jan Coyne. Paul Lowry put at my disposal valuable published materials that facilitated the analyses of the 1989 elections. Fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education to the Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, and the National Science Foundation allowed me to visit Chile in 1986 and 1988 to observe firsthand the political awakening of the country. I cannot leave unmentioned the numerous and fruitful conversations I had with faculty and students at Florida's Center for Latin American Studies. Its stimulating environment is a blessing for someone who enjoys conducting research on South America and unveiling the motivations behind the political behavior of its peoples.

Resuming Electoral Politics

Although overshadowed by elections in the United States and Canada, the Chilean plebiscite of October 6,1988, to determine whether General Augusto Pinochet would be accepted as a candidate in the 1989 presidential election attracted considerable worldwide attention. It was only the second opportunity in 15 years for Chileans to pass judgment on Pinochet and the regime he instituted on September 11, 1973. Early in 1978 General Pinochet, confident that his depolitization program was working and that the economic model applied by the junta was beginning to show some positive results, had called for a "national consultation"—not properly a plebiscite since no alternative was being offered should the result be negative—to ask Chileans whether they liked the way he was administering the country. Of the 5.35 million who volunteered an answer, 75 percent expressed support for the current state of affairs. Detailed breakdowns by regional or other administrative units were never disclosed, and in view of the absence of political opposition there was no way to demand them. The extent to which the Chilean people shared the views of Pinochet and his supporters concerning the excessive politicizing of the country, the dangers of a Marxist takeover, and the ineffectiveness of the national economy had not been measured by balloting for a decade and a half. Thus the 1988 plebiscite offered not only an opportunity to judge Pinochet's regime but was also a probe into the state of Chileans' political awareness, suppressed for so long. Since the road toward redemocratization has been taken, the question of how Chileans perceive electoral processes as exercises in political opinion becomes particularly significant: how confident are they in the effectiveness of the polls as a means for sociopolitical transformation; how trustful are they that popular representation—as exhibited in equitable apportionments—applies throughout the country and does not serve partisan interests; are they convinced that a system of parties and party alliances acts as an intermediator and effectively articulates their aspirations; do they, and how do they, search for a governmental system (presidential or parliamentary democractic) that best assures the functioning of a modem democracy? Chile's long absence from democracy provided politicians, intellectuals, 1

2

Elections in Chile

union leaders, and people at large with the chance to reflect on the shortcomings of political systems and practices before 1973. Indeed, the lack of free political expression supplied a blank surface on which plans for the country's future political life could be drafted. To determine the extent to which the present political debate on the advantages and pitfalls of political representation, party organization, and electoral practices will be able to shape future democracy in Chile, the main issues and currents of opinion within the present electoral debate will be examined.1

Electoral Strategies and Voter Awareness Political sophistication, which Chileans have been traditionally proud of, was continuously stimulated by the competitive party system that attracted political involvement at all levels of civic life. Young people, men and women alike, who distinguished themselves as leaders in high school were recruited by political parties at that early stage and encouraged to continue their political activities at the university. From their ranks came ideologues and party officials. 2 In the unions, charismatic figures who demonstrated bargaining and leadership abilities were diligently recruited by parties that claimed allegiance to the people or tried to widen their popular base. However, each party's ideological postulates, as well as its political programs, were drafted by the upper echelons, with little input from rank and file. During Christian Democracy's years in power (1965-1970) neighborhood leaders were incorporated into the leading ranks of popular parties to attract the vote of pobladores, a segment of the population that until then had not been interested in ideologies or included in national politics.3 These examples suffice to show how Chileans were exposed to politics in educational institutions, in the workplace, and in their neighborhoods. Few personal spheres were exempt from politics, and Chileans have always reveled in political discussions. Recognizing this reality, political parties were prompt to offer programs and agendas, and the voters were more than ready to choose from a vast array of political alternatives. The issues that were considered important in presidential and legislative elections were manifold and complex. They ranged from fundamental questions on constitutional rights and the makeup of the state to cultural issues such as the role of Catholic thinking in a secular state. Among the crucial constitutional issues were personal freedom and civil rights. Parties whose doctrinal platforms suggested a curtailment of such basic rights, even if they promised a society without classes and privileges, were received coldly and regarded with suspicion as to their ultimate goals. Political groups that advocated radical change were received no better. This explains why the Communist party has struggled to widen its

Resuming

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Politics

3

electoral support when other popular parties, such as the Radicals, the Socialists, and even the Christian Democrats, which never insisted on the individual's submission to an all-powerful state, at times enjoyed vast popular backing. The Constitution guaranteed the right to education from the state but also recognized the right to seek private education. Among the state's duties was the provision to provide public health care, welfare for the needy, and housing for low-income families and the dispossessed. These obligations severely burdened the country's finances, but no party would advocate cuts in these expenditures for fear of losing electoral backing. The Pinochet regime, free from electoral pressures, greatly reduced these commitments, evoking bitter resentment particularly among the poor. 4 The major economic issues were the cost of living, inflation, and unemployment, which progressively worsened after World War II. Equally important was the debate over the state's role in income redistribution and ownership in the main areas of the national economy—industries, banks, natural resources, and transportation. Ownership of these means of production and sources of wealth has been pursued by all parties of the center and left since the 1930s: only the political right has defended a free, unsocialized economy.5 Although the people are geographically isolated, Chilean interest in international events is probably one of the most pronounced in Latin America. International issues such as the Vietnam conflict, the suppression of freedom in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Fidel Castro's involvement in Latin American affairs were taken so seriously as to exert some influence on the outcome of past elections. On the same plane Chile's relations with the Soviet Union, with the People's Republic of China, with Cuba, and lately, with the Republic of South Africa have become issues by which Chileans have assessed the international programs and postulates of the national parties. In more than one instance professing ideological dependency on the Soviet Union or praising Cuba proved a costly electoral liability, as damaging as the rightist parties' unconditional support of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.6 One of the cultural issues most vehemently discussed from 1963 through 1966, when the Christian Democratic party rose to major political power, was anticlericalism. Marxist and liberal parties acrimoniously denounced the alleged alliance of Christian Democracy with the Chilean Catholic church,7 but once that party suffered electoral erosion in 1967-1969 and started to disintegrate, they were more than glad to welcome the Christian Left—a splinter group of Christian Democrats with Marxist postulates—as an electoral ally. Another predominant cultural issue was the role of women and the family in a socialist society. Using the status of women and the situation of family units in communist countries as a comparison, the advocates of socialist regimes engaged in bitter disputes with the defenders of family

4

Elections in Chile

values operating in Western Christian societies. The reaction of women voters seems to indicate their rejection of state interference in family affairs and preference for the traditional model of the Latin American family; that is, the dominant role of the woman in the home, the rearing of children within the family, and in general, a place for women in society more in tune with the values of Hispanic-American tradition.8 Electoral debates always centered on poignant issues and local problems that elicited responses from most citizens, even those less informed. Parties catered to the most varied interests, and the voters pondered the alternatives, made their choice, and voted according to their personal convictions. An election without issues was a bore for Chileans, and parties that relied solely on their ideological appeal paid dearly for this mistake. Corresponding to this degree of politicizing, sharpened in times of elections, voter participation was high. Abstaining was regarded as a missed opportunity for judging elected representatives, party politics, and government effectiveness. According to such a view of the electoral process in a pluralistic party system, there was no room for apathy, and the political dialog was often lively. It is therefore not surprising that even for General Pinochet there came a time when he no longer could ignore the people and had to ask them whether they wanted him to continue or not.

Chileans' Trust in the Electoral Process Faith in the electoral process develops only in countries where political opinions can be expressed freely at the polls, and where elected politicians act according to the demands of the electorate. In Chile this level of political expression was reached slowly but steadily. In 1920 an increased popular vote determined the election of Arturo Alessandri Palma, a rebellious Liberal who managed to mobilize lower-class voters against the dominating oligarchy in what is known in Chilean history as the revolt at the polls.9 Although the number of voters has increased steadily since 1920, electoral participation did not advance significantly until 1952, when women, who previously had had voting franchises only in municipal and congressional elections, were entitled to vote in presidential elections. Until 1973 voter eligibility began at age 21, and its lowering to 18 (originally approved for the congressional elections of March 1973) was sanctioned by the 1980 Constitution. The new Constitution extends suffrage—implicitly—to the members of the armed forces and state police (carabineros).10 The steps taken to broaden the electorate have enhanced Chileans' faith in the weight of their political opinions, at least as expressed in elections. In this sense the electoral system has developed from the consensus of varied political forces to grant political participation to as many citizens as possible, minimizing exclusions.

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5

Another question attaches, however, to the effectiveness, in terms of ensuing political action, of the votes cast. Swings in voters' preferences from one election to another are good indicators of how electors perceive the subsequent actions of elected representatives. When levels of popular electoral support for political parties is studied, a clear history of variation emerges over the years. The few studies that have been done on the subject demonstrate that only rarely have parties maintained the same level of support from one election to the next. 11 The Chilean experience has consistently proved that once a party or coalition wins the presidency it has to work hard against the opposition's efforts to stall government action and thereby undermine the ruling party's appeal. Erosion of electoral support after a term in office has occurred frequently in recent Chilean politics: the last time a president from the party in power was elected was 1946. Parties and presidents have since been initiated into, and removed from, the executive power from one election to the next. It has been different in Congress. Senators were chosen for eight-year terms in staggered elections every four years, while the national representatives (diputados, or deputies) were elected every four years. Thus an unsuccessful party could retain part of its representation in the Senate after losing seats in the lower house or losing the presidency. The electorate's power to reshuffle Congress made them confident that they could place their chosen candidates into higher political office and remove them if their performance were not adequate. Yet, accepting the fact that the electoral system has broadened the basis of popular power, the question of the weight that each individual vote has in shaping party representation and, indirectly, the generation of political power still has not been solved satisfactorily. In presidential elections the winning candidate was the one who received the majority or plurality in direct voting, each vote across the country having the same weight. Congressional elections, on the other hand, were subject to indirect voting procedures. Until 1973 the parties produced a list of candidates in order of party prestige for each electoral district. The contested seats were then distributed according to a dividing number (cifra repartidora) that was a quotient of all the votes cast and the number of seats in dispute. If a top-ofthe-list candidate obtained more votes than he needed, the excess (overspill) accrued to the next candidate on the list to allow him to reach the dividing number. 12 In this way the options of independent candidates and small parties were minimized, and the votes they received were lost, almost from the outset. Another shortcoming of the Chilean electoral system was the uneven apportionment of senators' and deputies' seats. Until 1973 senatorial seats were allocated at the rate of five to each of the nine provincial groupings, regardless of their demographic size. Seats in the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados) were distributed in proportion to the number of

6

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inhabitants in each electoral district. These districts comprised groups of municipalities in populous provinces, or an entire province where the population was small. The original allocation of seats was made in 1932, on the basis of the 1930 population census. By 1973 the distribution of seats had hardly changed despite the fact that Chile's population had increased by more than 250 percent, and that the urban provinces had grown at a faster pace than the rural and outlying provinces. In 1973, for instance, 3,918 votes were sufficient to elect a deputy in the remote rural province of Ays6n, while 73,143 votes were required in the populous Third District of Santiago. Although this large disparity was well recognized by congressmen, little was done to enlarge the original 145 seats or to rearrange them regionally according to newer population figures. A tacit understanding seems to have existed among politicians that redistributing seats or enlarging the legislative body would only have boosted the overwhelming dominance of the province of Santiago in national politics.13 The composition of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies prescribed by the 1980 Constitution hardly improved the disparate apportionment. The Senate consists of 47 members. Four senators are elected from populous Santiago; four each from the two urban-industrial regions of Valparaiso and Bio-Bio; four each from the rural agricultural regions of Maule, Araucania, and Los Lagos; and two senators each from the other seven regions. The remaining nine seats go to a variable segment comprised of the ex-presidents of the Republic still alive, an ex-president of the Supreme Court, an ex-chief of the Office of the Comptroller, four e x commanders in chief (from the army, navy, air force, and carabineros), two ex-ministers of state, and a former university president selected by his peers. With the exception of the ex-presidents of the Republic, the other nonelected senators are designated by the current president of the Republic and keep their Senate seats as long as he stays in office. The presence in the upper house of the nine senators not elected by popular vote, among them the four appointed ex-members of the armed forces, has been acrimoniously criticized by political party spokesmen as an interference of the military in national politics and a lingering presence of the past regime in the legislative body.14 The Chamber consists of 120 deputies from 60 electoral districts, which is less than the 145 based on the 1930 population census. Furthermore, the districts assigned by the electoral law are of disproportionate size: for example, one deputy from the electoral district of Vifia del Mar, in the region of Valparaiso, will represent 314,000 inhabitants, while the deputy of the electoral district of Aysdn will represent only 69,000. 15 Such disparity of representation is the reflection of the philosophy of the authors of the 1980 Constitution, who considered that too many deputies would only increase politization in the country and render the work of the lower house cumbersome.

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The Reliance on Government Organization and the Party System Expressing confidence in the power of elections as a mechanism for freely choosing or removing public officers is not tantamount to passing judgment on the form of government, its legitimacy, or its origins. The crisis of 1973, and the authoritarian aftermath, raised questions as to whether the presidential system sanctioned by the 1925 Constitution responded to the Chilean notion of effective government based on balanced power between the executive and the legislative.16 The pronounced "Caesarism" of Pinochet's dictatorial rule, in addition to the many powers already granted to the president of the Republic by the 1980 Constitution, raised fears concerning potential excesses of a presidential regime. 17 In an effort to prevent future despotism, the demands for reforms to the 1980 Constitution are increasing. A strong current from the opposition recommends a presidential system closely checked by a pluriparty parliament once power is totally wrested from Pinochet. Those who criticize a powerful executive underplay, at least for the time being, the administrative paralysis that resulted in the past when a government with minority representation in both the Senate and the Chamber was at the mercy of congressional obstruction. 18 Many of the legislative bottlenecks and impasses that resulted from stalemates between the executive and legislative powers were at the root of the increasing polarization and administrative frustration that beset recent presidents, Frei and Allende not excepted.19 Consequently, the growing political dialog in the country is concentrated on how to resolve conflicts between the powers for the sake of administrative expediency. The 1980 Constitution contains a solution for constitutional impasses by public consultation; namely, plebiscites. 20 Such a procedure, although new in Chile, is quite in tune with the national spirit and the deeprooted conviction that all political power proceeds from the people. There are still a few politicians who reject the idea of plebiscite, arguing that this tool could be used by the president against Congress, but not vice versa. However, a look at the 1988 plebiscite shows that, although it originated in the executive, it eventually served the interests of the opposition. The other mechanism to avert power crises stemming from uncertain popular mandates is the introduction of second-run elections whenever none of the presidential contestants receives an absolute majority (51 percent of the total vote). Fifteen days after the first election popular vote must decide which of the two finalists with the higher number of votes is to become president of the Republic.21 This clause seeks to prevent a second-plurality candidate, backed by a temporary majority in Congress, from being placed ahead of a firstplurality candidate who lacks sufficient backing. In the future the people at large will decide on matters that hinge on their delegated power. Notwithstanding the fact that many of the innovations contained in the

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1980 Constitution were designed to correct problems manifest in the past, there are still several points that are unacceptable in Chile's political tradition.22 For instance, the unprecedented participation in politics granted to ex-members of the armed forces and the exclusionary clauses directed at Marxist parties reduce the value of a document that was supposed to streamline government actions and to correct proven shortcomings of the 1925 Constitution (in effect until 1973). As to whether the executive or the legislative should hold the balance of power, several articles of the 1980 Constitution will have to be reassessed without pressure from military overseers once all power is returned to civilians. Assuming that the electoral reforms implemented so far and the constitutional progress being achieved contribute to modernizing the normative principles of political life, several nagging questions still remain. To what extent is this renewal reflected in the structure and platforms of Chilean political parties? After 15 years of authoritarian rule what sort of modernization has occurred within the national party system? Have the party authorities reflected on the programmatic contents and reviewed the strategies of their institutions? In the words of one of the country's foremost political analysts and now Aylwin's minister of finance, Alejandro Foxley, "an improved quality of politics requires a certain tuning [in to] society's real problems, which are not identical with problems as perceived by ideologized intellectuals."23 The intellectual ideologues referred to are those who, during the greater part of this century, have used Chile's political parties and social mobilization to further their own interests and satisfy personal ambition. Foxley adds that "when there is a political class which monopolizes all forms of intermediation between society and the state and shares with the intellectuals the tendency to embrace Utopian solutions, it becomes necessary to allow for a wider representation of interests and participation in public decisions and to give a voice to the principal social actors."24 He sees that the demands placed by these personal interests upon the state and the manipulation of social organizations by political parties have accentuated public conflicts, polarized political opinions, and politicized each and every level of society.25 This observation from an intellectual now in government alludes to the same overpoliticizing that Pinochet and his supporters criticized as sterile and tried to eradicate by banning all political activity after the 1973 coup. Still, the latest electoral contests—the plebiscite of October 1988 and the elections of December 1989—have proved that political criticism and sound electoral sense are very much alive in Chile.

The Prerogatives of Choice The interest shown in voting during the 1988 plebiscite, the orderly conduct of the 1989 elections, and the revealing results demonstrate that, even under

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dictatorial stress, Chileans' trust in the benefits of electoral choice is still strong; the electorate continues to respond to political stimuli, and opposition at the polls counts. Acknowledgments of this kind also demand that the other actors on the political scene—namely, the political parties and leaders—be ready to play the part assigned to them with the same sense of responsibility with which the voters went to the polls. Chileans' trust in the electoral process is based on their conviction that the nation's political groups are capable of interpreting their demands and translating them into practical political programs. However, to a Chilean, this implies also that he reserves for himself the prerogative of supporting antipartisan currents of opinion if the party of his choice does not meet his expectations. Indeed, on several occasions the electorate has rejected the programs of the established parties and opted for populist solutions that looked more promising. The election of former general Carlos IMfiez del Campo in 1952 is a case in point: he won the presidency backed by a minor party but supported by a large mass of independent voters. A year later the same voters gave his party a congressional landslide. But when the Ibdfiez del Campo government proved incapable and failed to live up to their expectations, many returned to the traditional parties, and in the congressional election of 1957 he suffered a decisive rebuttal.26 Since the 1988 and 1989 elections electoral initiative has favored the anti-Pinochet opposition, as it was capable of mobilizing more than half of the voting population against the regime. As long as the parties maintain a united front and are able to formulate a cohesive, practicable, and sensible plan of socioeconomic action the advantage can be maintained. This presupposes abandoning certain exclusionist policies pursued by interest groups on the left and the right who seem to perceive more electoral advantages in returning to the polarized confrontations of the past than in embarking on a constructive restoration of democracy.27 Almost two decades have elapsed since democracy broke down in Chile, and during that time not only has the stance of the national social forces changed, but also the general setup of international politics. The ideological confrontation between Western democracy and Eastern socialism that greatly influenced the political debate in Chile and helped to define development models no longer applies in international politics. Instead of ideological confrontation, accommodation and compromise dominate the encounters between the socialist and capitalist worlds. Considering the deprivation of fundamental rights and its experiences with dictatorship, Chile is very unlikely to feel much attracted to radical regimes such as those propagated by the socialist ideologues of the 1970s.28 On the other hand, the military regime's economic laissez-faire and its failure to respond to the obligations of the welfare state are equally unacceptable to the rather coiporatist mind of Chileans.29 Pondering the alternatives for a future government in the country,

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Alejandro Foxley envisages a system in which proper consideration is given to different interests and in which channels are provided for labor and business organizations to present their demands and to have a say in key public decisions.30 Up to now, instead of seeking concerted action, both groups have been antagonizing each other or have sought access to the corridors of power in order to make their primary considerations prevail over those of their rivals: polarization and intransigence have been the final outcomes. Adopting pluralism instead of corporatism as the basis for representation and choosing concerted policies that allow for organized interest groups' participation in selected areas of government decisions seem to be the most practicable alternatives, instead of state policies dictated and imposed from above. This foils, on one hand, the state's dominance over all spheres of national economic and cultural life and assures, on the other hand, that the country does not fall prey to uncontrolled monetarism for the benefit of capital holders. According to Foxley, this idealized regime is more likely to be realized by a center-left alliance than by a right- or left-dominated government. Such an alliance presupposes—at least during the postauthoritarian period— relegating the ideological-programmatic competition that characterized parties' political action before 1973 to a secondary plane,31 and explains the victory achieved by the informal center-left coalition in 1989. At this point in the political-electoral debate that is ongoing in Chile, a comparison with other countries of Latin America that have returned to democracy after severe authoritarian relapses (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay)32 may be appropriate. Chile has emerged from the military experience with firm economic foundations, a booming export economy, and party structures that are purposeful and militant. The larger parties' prestige was enhanced during the years of military rule, but it must also be recognized for the sake of an objective analysis of popular opinion in Chile that the military also emerged with little prestige erosion, quite contrary to the military in Argentina whose 1982 defeat in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) brought it into disrepute. There are still many in Chile who maintain that the fiscal situation and the vitality of the national economy are unrivaled in Latin America. 33 Moreover, what is uniquely striking in the Chilean case is the rapid reestablishment of the political parties and fast positioning in their former ideological trenches. This is astonishing in view of the fact that Pinochet's rule, which was determined to do away with policitization, has been the longest dictatorship that Chile has experienced since gaining independence in 1810. Another remarkable feature is the rather quick revival of the people's faith in electoral decisions and prompt response to party stimulation. This is perhaps the consequence of a natural disposition, nurtured through decades of civilian rule, to political dialog, and of a tendency not to tolerate imposed governance. State and government are considered as the expression of the sovereign will of the people, and in these institutions

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Chileans project all their ideals. Furthermore, attempts to impose upon the Chileans a regime that they themselves have not chosen will be resisted, no matter whether that regime is imposed by the military, the extreme right, or the extreme left. Authoritarian experiences are alien to this people with entrenched libertarian traditions and a deep attachment to legalism; all through the following pages instances of rejection of authoritarian alternatives will be pointed out.

Notes 1. The high degree of civility with which the elections were held and the recognition of their legitimacy and political weight have elicited great interest among foreign social scientists in the past. See, for example, Orville G. Cope, "The Presidential Election in Chile: The Politics of Change and Access," InterAmerican Economic Affairs 10, no. 2 (Spring 1966):3-29; Orville G. Cope, "The 1965 Congressional Election in Chile: An Analysis," Journal of Inter-American Studies 10, no. 2 (April 1968):256-276; Michael Francis and Eldon Lanning, "Chile's 1967 Municipal Elections," Inter-American Economic Affairs 21, no. 2 (Autumn 1967):23-36; George W. Grayson, "The Frei Administration and the Parliamentary Elections of 1969," Inter-American Economic Affairs 23, no. 2 (Autumn 1969):49-74; Michael J. Francis, The Allende Victory: An Analysis of the 1970 Chilean Presidential Election (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973). Fewer studies pertain to the 1973 congressional election, but see Urs Miiller, "Análisis de los resultados de las elecciones parlamentarias de marzo 1973," Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Nacional, Universidad Católica de Chile, mimeographed (Santiago, 1983), and César N. Caviedes, The Politics of Chile: A Sociogeographical Assessment (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 265273. 2. José J. Brunner, "L'intelligentsia chilienne: cadres institutionnels et univers idéologiques," Notes et Études Documentaires 4, no. 1 (1989): 132-144. 3. A classic interpretation of Chilean political spirit is contained in Federico Gil, The Political System of Chile (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966). An excellent work on the political mobilization of the pobladores is Daniel Goldrich, "Political Organization and Politization of the Poblador," Comparative Political Studies 3, no. 2 (July 1970): 176-202. An enlightening description of the political spirit of the Chileans during the military rule is Carlos Huneeus, Los chilenos y la política. Cambio y continuidad en el autoritarianismo (Santiago: Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Contemporánea, Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, 1987). 4. Pilar Vergara, "Changes in the Economic Functions of the Chilean State," in Military Rule in Chile: Dictatorship and Oppositions, ed. J. Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 96-102. 5. R. French-Davis, "El experimento monetarista en Chile," Colección de Estudios CIEPAN 9 (December 1982):5-24. 6. Pablo Huneeus et al., Chile. El costo social de la dependencia ideológica (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1973), pp. 34-36. 7. Brian H. Smith, The Church and Politics in Chile (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 70-72. For an insight into the role of anticlericalism during the rise of the Christian Democratic party in Chile see

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Orville G. Cope, "The 1964 Presidential Election in Chile: The Politics of Change and Access," Ititer-American Economic Affairs 19, no. 4 (Spring 1966): 20-21. 8. Elsa M. Chaney, "Old and New Feminists in Latin America: The Case of Peru and Chile," Journal of Marriage and the Family 35, no. 2 (May 1973):331343. 9. Gil, Political System, pp. 56-60. 10. Luz Bulnes Aldunate, Constitución Política de la República de Chile. Concordancias, anotaciones y fuentes (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1981), pp. 314-315. 11. Raúl Atria, "Características y tendencias de la estructura de partidos en Chile," in Hacia un nuevo diagnóstico para Chile, ed. Andrés Sanfuentes (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1973), pp. 3 6 ^ 3 ; Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 295-299. 12. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 49-50. 13. Ibid., pp. 55-56. 14. "Poderes que tientan," Hoy (October 24-30, 1988):6-8. 15. Mario Fernández, Sistemas electorales, sus problemas y opciones para ¡a democracia chilena (San José, C. R.: Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, Centro de Asesoría y Promoción Electoral, 1986), p. 29. 16. Crescente Donoso, "Notas sobre el origen, acatamiento y desgaste del régimen presidencial: 1925-1973," Historia 13 (1976):271-352. 17. Augusto Varas, Los militares en el poder. Régimen y gobierno militar en Chile, 1973-1986 (Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales [FLACSO] Editorial Pehuén, 1987), pp. 61-65. 18. Jorge Tapia-Videla, "The Chilean Presidency in a Developmental Perspective," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 9, no. 4 (1977):451-481. See also Fernández, Sistemas electorales, pp. 24-25. 19. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 168-169, 229-230, 261. 20. Constitución Política de la República de Chile 1980 (Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1980), Article 82, No. 4, Article 117. 21. Ibid., Article 26. 22. An excellent collection of documents illustrating the debate generated by the regime sanctioned in the 1980 Constitution and the legitimacy sought by General Pinochet is Instituto Chileno de Estudios Humanísticos (ICHEH), Una salida constitucional para Chile. Exposiciones y debates del seminario "Un sistema jurídico político constitucional para Chile." Santiago 27 y 28 de julio 1984. Prepared by José Polanco Varas and Ana María Torres (Santiago: Ediciones de ICHEH, 1985). Particularly enlightening are the "Exposición del Seftor Enrique Silva Cimma," pp. 121-129, and "Exposición del Señor Patricio Aylwin Azócar," pp. 145-154, condemning the state of affairs, as well as "Exposición del Seftor Sergio Diez Urzúa," pp. 67-82, and "Exposición del Señor Francisco Bulnes Sanfuentes," pp. 131-143, defending the institutional order created by the 1980 Constitution. 23. Alejandro Foxley, After Authoritarianism: Political Alternatives, The Helen Kellog Institute for International Studies Working Paper, no. 40 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1985), p. 14. 24. Ibid., p. 15. 25. Ibid., p. 18. 26. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 199-200. 27. Eduardo Frei et al., Democracia Cristiana y Partido Comunista (Santiago: Editorial Aconcagua, 1986), pp. 35-39, 76-77. 28. C. Huneeus, Los chilenos y la política, pp. 167-170.

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29. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Social Security in Latin America: Pressure Groups Stratification and Inequality (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978), pp. 83-116. 30. Foxley, "After Authoritarianism," pp. 16-18. 31. Ibid., p. 31. 32. For an analysis of free elections as a means for achieving transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes see Paul W. Drake and Eduardo Silva, eds., Elections and. Democratization in Latin America 1980-1985 (San Diego: Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, University of California at San Diego, 1986); Manuel A. Garretón, Dictaduras y democratización (Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales [FLASCO], 1984), pp. 87-91; and the review article by Jorge Nef, "The Trend towards Democratization and Redemocratization in Latin America: Shadow and Substance," Latin American Research Review 23, no. 3 (1988):131-153. 33. Michelle Santo, "Algunas reflexiones sobre las políticas de estabilización y liberación en el Cono Sur desde fines de los 70," Ensayos Económicos 10 (1988): 1-53.

The Last Predictatorship Elections

When considering the evolution of preferences among the Chilean electorate it is necessary to turn back to the elections of the early 1970s, or even of 1969, to understand the events that led to the loss of democracy and interruption of electoral activity in 1973. In those years certain alignments of political forces and spatial variations in voters' preferences were taking place that are not at all reflected in the general results of the 1969, 1970,1971, and 1973 elections. Both shifting political predilections across the political spectrum of the nation and spatial variations over time are paramount in a study of electoral behavior. Local circumstances can be as important in a voter's decisionmaking process as personal or ideological considerations. Viewed as an aggregate—that is, as the total reaction of a local or regional electorate—personal motivations that lie at the root of voting behavior may seem incompatible with the voter's socioeconomic background or contradictory to group interests. Thus, rather than emphasizing the ideological motivations of electoral decisions, I will be primarily concerned with the societal voting responses expressed regionally.1

Allende's Election, 1970, and Popular Unity's Rise to Power When at the end of 1969 the die was cast and the preelectoral pacts were sealed, it became clear that the presidential race involved three candidates with similar chances: Jorge Alessandri for the right; Salvador Allende for the left's Popular Unity coalition; and Radomiro Tomic as the banner carrier of the governing Christian Democracy. This time—unlike the election of Eduardo Frei in 1964—the right did not throw its support behind Christian Democracy; if anything, rightists expected to garner its backing for the 74year-old Alessandri. However, the former president's advanced age and certain irreconcilable differences that had emerged between the right and Christian Democracy during the Frei administration disallowed any such rapprochement. For their part, many personalities of the right did not even consider backing the "unscrupulous demagog" Tomic, as they branded him. 15

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This initial split between the center and the right improved Allende's chances. In the presidential contest of 1964 Frei, representing the centerright, had convincingly beaten Allende, but now, with the center-right divided, one of three contending candidates needed only slightly more than a third of the national vote to become president. The only way to estimate their approximate shares of the electoral forces is to look at the results of the preceding election. The March 1969 congressional elections had been basically a popularity test for Christian Democracy after four years in government. Besieged by a left that was not satisfied with the social and economic reforms and an estranged right that feared more structural changes, Christian Democracy had been counting on peasants, blue-collar workers, and women, since those groups had benefited most from government administrative and socioeconomic reforms. Expecting some 35 percent of the national vote, party leaders were dismayed to discover that though the party had retained its first place in the nation its share of the popular vote had dropped to 31 percent from the 43.6 percent obtained in the 1965 congressional elections.2 The combined votes for the different factions of socialism and the Communist party reached 30.4 percent, while the rightist National party captured 20 percent of the vote. The Radical party with 12 percent held the electoral balance. It seemed then that the 1970 presidential election might be decided by the supporters of this centrist party, depending on which side the majority favored. If the leaders of the left-wing Radical party joined the Socialist-Communist parties' alliance in support of Allende, and the rightist minority endorsed Alessandri, the presidential seat might go to Allende. From electoral returns and media perceptions, we can gather that the two political currents that had been gaining support in late 1969-early 1970 were the coalition of the left (Popular Unity) and the rightist camp supporting Jorge Alessandri. Christian Democracy, isolated in the middle, was perceived as a force with sagging electoral support that had maneuvered itself into a lamentably defensive position auguring third place in the forthcoming election. The only hope for Tomic was to attract an apparently uncommitted progressive and socially minded 6 to 8 percent of the electorate by praising the socioeconomic achievements of the Christian Democratic administration and by capitalizing on President Frei's positive image. The Tomic campaign strategy was to point its guns at the right for opposing the pace of reforms and abstain from firing at the left. But the tactic backfired, pushing socially minded uncommitted voters toward the Allende camp, to which they felt ideologically closer, and alienating moderate centrists, who felt more at ease with Alessandri than with Tomic. Election results were a faithfulreflectionof Christian Democracy's failed strategy and the Popular Unity coalition's cleverly conducted campaign. Allende, with 36.2 percent of the total vote, emerged with only a narrow advantage over Alessandri (34.9 percent), but both front-runners were well

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ahead of Radomiro Tomic, who obtained only 27.8 percent of the vote. Allende won by wide margins where he had to win: in the northern provinces of Tarapaca, Antofagasta, Atacama, and Coquimbo; the central agriculturalmining province of O'Higgins; the mining-industrial provinces of Concepción and Arauco; and in southernmost Magallanes.3 In all these provinces, where a large proportion of unionized mining and industrial workers had strongly favored the Socialist and Communist candidates in the 1969 elections, the vote for Allende was convincingly high, oscillating between 43 and 50 percent. In these provinces Alessandri won second place with 25 to 30 percent, while Tomic received a low 20 to 25 percent. Alessandri captured pluralities in most of the urban districts of Metropolitan Santiago and in the agricultural provinces of central Chile, with the exception of Talca, unexpectedly taken by Allende. In comparison with the pluralities Allende obtained in the north and south, Alessandri's advantages were less impressive, between four and 10 percentage points. This meant that though Allende came only second in these provinces (not precisely strongholds of the left) he still obtained enough votes to gain an overall national victory. Tomic achieved pluralities in the urban-industrial province of Valparaiso and in the rural southern province of Aysén, but his winning margins were so slight that he never threatened Allende or Alessandri. His greatest losses occurred in the northern provinces, in Metropolitan Santiago, and in the agricultural provinces of central Chile. The results were particularly discouraging in the agricultural provinces where Christian Democracy had implemented vigorous agrarian reforms directed not only at achieving social justice but also at securing an electoral clientele. But now this clientele, which in the 1964, 1965, and 1969 elections had yielded good pluralities, deserted the party and joined the ranks of the opposition on the left (as exemplified by O'Higgins and Talca) or returned to the right as occurred in the rest of agricultural Chile. That the agrarian reform promoted by the Christian Democratic government did not yield the expected electoral benefits is further proved by the fact that Tomic finished second in the agricultural provinces of Malleco, Cautín (region of Araucania), Valdivia, Osorno, and Llanquihue (today in the region of Los Lagos), which had not been exposed to agrarian reform and where a landed class still owned midsized holdings, while in the provinces affected by agrarian reform, he came third.4 Two astonishing aspects of the Allende victory are that he obtained enough votes to capture the presidency without winning pluralities in the populous provinces of Valparaiso and Santiago, and that he won without women's support. Since over 47 percent of the population—roughly 51 percent of the national electorate—are concentrated in Valparaiso and Santiago, any past president had to win these two core provinces. But in 1970 this axiom was disproved when Allende became president without winning these core regions just by making big inroads in the rest of the

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provinces. Although the national winning margin was 39,175 votes, Allende obtained a 50,570 vote advantage over Alessandri in Concepción and a 41,965 vote edge in the northernmost provinces, making up for losses in others, especially Valparaiso and Santiago. On the other hand, Alessandri, who had concentrated on populous Santiago—which he won—achieved only a slight advantage that could not compensate for his losses in Concepción and northernmost Chile. For the first time in history the presidential contest had been decided by the provinces and not by the nation's core.5 In the 1964 presidential election Allende's chances were diminished by female voters' overwhelming support for Eduardo Frei. In fact, 61 percent voted for him and only 39 percent for Allende. In 1970, 38.4 percent of the women chose Alessandri, 30.5 percent Allende, and 29.9 percent Tomic. In comparative terms, Allende's demise among women was less serious than Alessandri's defeat among male voters, of whom 41.6 percent supported Allende and only 31.5 percent backed Alessandri, resulting in a 10 percent difference that compensated for Allende's losses among women. Voting behavior in the 1970 presidential election offers two interesting insights: (1) established conventions did not hold up against newly developing political trends such as the emergence of electoral power centers in the militant provinces in the north and south and the volatility of the vote in the agricultural provinces; and (2) Allende showed that it was possible to neutralize the powerful female vote in the urban provinces by means of robust male advantages in militant provinces.

The Municipal Elections of 1971 In the democratic Chile of the past, municipal elections were held nationwide every four years, provided they did not coincide with a presidential or congressional election, in which case they were postponed for one year. This practice created a plethora of electoral events. Thus in April 1971 the time had come to renew the municipal authorities elected in 1967. Just as the 1953 and 1965 congressional elections, held one year after the landslide victories of Carlos Itafiez del Campo and Eduardo Frei, respectively, served to confirm the temporary popularity of both leaders, the 1971 municipal elections, six months after Salvador Allende's triumph, were expected to confirm his popularity.6 Profiting from the windfall and enjoying the voters' honeymoon with their newly elected president, the parties of the Popular Unity coalition reached astounding successes, capturing 50.8 percent of the national vote against 48 percent for all other parties. In spite of obtaining 2.8 percent fewer votes than Tomic in September 1970, with 25.6 percent the Christian Democratic party remained the majority force in the country. Next came the Socialist party with 22 percent, a marked improvement over the 13 percent obtained in the 1969 congressional

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elections. Third place went to the National party with 18.1 percent of the national vote—a 1.9 percent drop from the 1969 result. The Communist party, second-largest pillar in the Popular Unity coalition, managed to secure 17 percent, which was almost identical to the 16.7 percent reached in 1969. With the rest of the parties unable to pass the 10 percent mark, these four emerged as the major protagonists in the political squabbles that characterized the unsettled years of the Popular Unity government. When considered regionally 7 the Socialist and Communist parties dominated city councils in the northern provinces (Tarapaca, Atacama, and Coquimbo), where they captured from 24 to 26 percent of the provincial vote. Notwithstanding this dominance of the left, Christian Democracy proved a worthy challenger by finishing first in Antofagasta and second in Coquimbo. Popular Unity was in no position to control political activities in the north and support the new administration of Salvador Allende. In the core provinces—Aconcagua, Valparaiso, and Santiago—the picture changed as Christian Democracy obtained plurality with 27 percent, leaving second places to either the National or Socialist party. While candidates from the latter fared unusually well, those from the Communist party did not enjoy similar popularity as in the north and came third or fourth. South of Santiago, in the predominantly agricultural provinces of the regions of O'Higgins, Maule, and northern Bio-Bio, Christian Democracy strengthened its position as the most popular party. However, second place was not claimed by the rightist National party as in the past, but by the Socialist party, which finished second in all of these provinces except Colchagua. In the provinces of Concepción, Arauco, and Bio-Bio (southern part of the Bio-Bio region) Christian Democracy retained first place, and second place went to the Socialists. Only in Arauco and Bio-Bio did the Communists come in second. This shows that, although the two main parties of the Popular Unity coalition were the dominant forces in this region that had given solid support to Allende and rejected Tomic, Christian Democracy was still more powerful than each individually. Farther south, in Araucania and Los Lagos, the National party won clear victories over Christian Democracy and the Socialist party. Only in Cautín did Christian Democracy win, while the Socialists were victorious in Valdivia. It seems that in this part of the country voters who had shown a strong liking for Alessandri in the presidential contest continued to support the right (National party), and notwithstanding their poor endorsement of Tomic seven months earlier, they put Christian Democracy into second place. In the extreme south Christian Democracy remained the strongest single party by taking pluralities in Aysén and Magallanes, while the Socialist party came second. While presidential and congressional elections reflect ideological postures more appropriately, municipal elections tend to respond closely to local issues. Since peoples' decisions to vote for a certain list can be greatly

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influenced by local personalities, municipal elections should not be considered as monitors of major national political debates. In April 1971 the Popular Unity government enjoyed the height of its popularity, of which the Socialist party—home of the attractive Salvador Allende—was reaping most of the benefits. In many provinces Christian Democracy was recovering from Tomic's defeat in September 1970. However, the 25.6 percent it achieved nationwide might well be interpreted as another step down, considering that Tomic had been able to capture 27.8 percent of the national electorate. By the same token, the National party's 18.1 percent overall looks like a major decline in popularity when compared with Jorge Alessandri's 34.9 percent in the presidential election. These interpretations refute the assumption that votes obtained by presidential candidates represent solid support for the winning candidate's party. In actuality, many voters circulate across the political spectrum in response to circumstantial appeals of public figures. Better insight into a party's attractiveness and potential electorate can be gained from examining congressional elections, particularly if one compares the 17 percent for the Communist party in the 1971 municipal elections with the 16.7 percent obtained in the 1969 congressional elections, or the 13.5 percent reached by the Radicals in 1969 with the 12 percent collected by the two branches of that party in the 1971 municipal elections. The entire Popular Unity coalition's vote represents an increase of 14.6 percent over Allende's tally in September 1970. Most of this strength stems from the heightened popularity of the Socialist party; as mentioned above, the Communist party experienced no growth over 1969. Despite the auspicious results for the parties in government, there were some rough spots in the municipal elections, such as female voters' unchanged apathy toward the Popular Unity's parties: 20 percent for the Socialist party and only 15 percent for the Communist party. In contrast, Christian Democracy attracted 29 percent, and the National party 22 percent, of the female vote. Christian Democracy obtained plurality among women in most provinces—even if it did not finish first overall—and where it did not, the National party did. Only in northernmost Tarapaca did the Communist party win first place among men and women alike. This differential gender preference worried Popular Unity strategists considerably as they prepared for what was considered the ultimate test for their government: the 1973 congressional elections. Stalemate and Polarization: The Congressional Elections of 1973 The period between the 1971 municipal elections and the 1973 congressional elections is the most explosive in Chile's electoral history. In terms of polarization, ideological barricades, animosity, and aggression, these 22

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months were even worse than the time between the election of Pedro Aguirre Cerda from the Popular Front in 1938 and the congressional elections in 1941, in which the new president's popularity was to be tested. In the early 1940s polarization and political intransigence were not traits of Chilean politics, but that changed in the early 1970s. Instead of seeking accommodation and consensus in the traditional fashion, the most visible and vociferous leaders of the two opposing forces engaged in a war of words and deeds that made compromise seem less and less probable.8 The Socialists, Communists, and minor allies, maintaining an alleged ideological purity, would not even talk to the Christian Democrats—at that time their bitter opponents. On the other side of the barricades Christian Democracy, making use of its plurality in Congress—a result of the 1969 congressional election—and assisted by congressmen from the National party, stood in firm opposition to the governing Popular Unity. Hotheaded Popular Unity leaders accused Christian Democracy of abandoning the popular cause and siding with the political right in order to obstruct the people's march toward total political power. In the eyes of Christian Democracy, total political power in the hands of such leaders meant the end of political pluralism and installation of an irreversible leftist totalitarian regime. Such an irreconcilable stance made a rapprochement between the center and the left impracticable, unlike the case during the government of President Frei when progressive reforms proposed by the Christian Democracy and the right could be approved in Congress with support of the parties now in the Popular Unity coalition. Since neither side had a majority in Congress, it was not possible, as proposed by the right, to pass legislation that would facilitate the transition to socialism or to impeach the president and his ministers for allegedly violating the constitution in their efforts to impose socializing measures. The Popular Unity coalition therefore viewed the upcoming congressional elections as an opportunity to seat a strong Congress for Allende, while the Christian Democractic and National parties sought to halt the alleged excesses of the government. To this end both needed more than two-thirds of the seats in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. Achieving this goal in the Senate was highly problematic because only half the seats were to be renewed; the other half were still to be occupied by the senators elected in 1969. A landslide victory in the Chamber also looked improbable, since it would require pushing one of the two major blocs below the high-water marks the Christian Democratic and National parties (the opposition) and the Socialist and Communist parties (the government) had independently reached in previous congressional elections. Since, in the heat of the struggle, these realistic departing points were totally ignored by the leaders of both camps, the results of the congressional elections turned out to be as inconclusive as before, and neither got closer to the hoped-for two-thirds majority. The Confederation of Democracy list (Christian Democratic, National, and Radical Democracy parties) obtained

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54.7 percent of the votes in the Chamber elections and 56.2 percent in the five senatorial circumscripciones up for renewal. The Federation of the Popular Unity list (the Socialist, Communist, and Radical parties plus six minor allies) captured 43.4 percent in the Chamber elections and 42 percent in the Senate. The remaining percentage, which did not at all affect the returns of the major contenders, went to a third list presented by the Socialist Popular Union, a group of disgruntled Socialists. Even though the opposition now held an impressive 64 percent of Senate seats and 58 percent in the Chamber of Deputies, this was still not sufficient to attempt impeaching the president or to press for legislation halting the actions of the government.9 Of the contending parties, Christian Democracy remained the major force, capturing 30 percent of the national vote. Compared with the 1970 presidential election and the 1971 municipal elections, the percentage increased considerably as even the marks reached by the party in the 1969 congressional elections were surpassed. With 21.5 percent, the National party came second, improving its 1971 score by 2.4 percent and its 1969 score by 1.6 percent. Third place went to the Socialist party with 18 percent of the vote, which was a 5 percent increase over 1969, but a 22 percent drop from the 1971 results. The Communist party finished fourth with 16.5 percent of the vote, a percentage almost identical to its 1969 and 1971 results. It is intriguing to observe that three out of the four major parties increased their votes while the Communist party maintained theirs. Who, then, absorbed the losses? The answer lies in the dramatic effacement of the numerous factions into which the former Radical party had split, and in the enormous contractions that affected all minor political partners. The rampant polarization made it impossible for minor, eclectic groups to survive, as votes went to the parties perceived as winners and as powerful ideological entities.10 In addition, lowering the voting age to 18 added 24 percent to the electorate, which may have compensated for relative losses among the major parties. In my previous work, The Politics of Chile, I called attention to the paradox that despite the bitterness with which both major blocs attacked each other before the election, and the exacerbated polarization that dominated in 1973, neither of the contending blocs seems to have been successful in attracting supporters from the opposite camp.11 In fact, the 55 percent reached by the Confederation of Democracy in 1973 is not significantly higher than the total (52 percent) obtained by Christian Democracy and the National party in 1969. Furthermore, in comparison to the vote for Allende in 1970, the increase for Popular Unity in 1973 is still four points short of the 46 percent that was collected by the Communists, the different factions of the Socialists, the Radicals, and the Democrats in 1969. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that the voters, instead of changing from one camp to another, circulated chiefly within the major blocs, from the vanishing minor parties to the major ones.

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As to the regional distribution of preferences, Christian Democracy secured pluralities in the provinces of Coquimbo and Valparaiso, in two districts of populous Metropolitan Santiago, in some agricultural provinces of central and southern Chile, and—upsetting previous patterns—in southernmost Magallanes. Also unexpected was the 24 percent plurality in the province of Concepción where the powerful Communists, with only 14.8 percent, were displaced. Yet Christian Democrats were disappointed in some of the agricultural provinces of central Chile (O'Higgins, Colchagua, Talca, and Linares), which yielded pluralities either to the Socialists or the National party. In these and other provinces where Christian Democrats did not finish first, they still obtained Chamber and Senate seats since these were distributed in proportion to the number of votes collected, and not according to the principle of winner takes all. The National party improved greatly, with 34 deputies, four senators, and pluralities in the core of urban Santiago, Talca, and Linares. With an ideology diametrically opposed to that of Allende's socialist administration, the extreme right tried its utmost to stall the progressive socialization of the country. Certain segments of the electorate, mostly from the capital city and two traditional agricultural provinces, subscribed to this strategy. The Socialist party, leader of the left, demonstrated its popularity by taking first place in the northern province of Atacama, in District 2 (the populous western quarter of greater Santiago), in the agricultural provinces of O'Higgins and Colchagua, and in Valdivia. The victory in Colchagua was the first ever for the Socialists in this outspoken conservative agricultural province. As to Valdivia, the Socialists had wrested it away from the Christian Democrats in 1969, and Allende had captured a majority in 1970. Like the Christian Democrats, the Socialists got several deputies and senators in provinces where—although not finishing first—they came ahead of their Communist list companions. Overall, the Socialist party seated a total of five senators and 27 deputies. For the Communist party the regional results were as expected, although the national total was not exactly flattering. The northern mining provinces of Tarapaca and Antofagasta, as well as the two mining-agricultural provinces of Arauco and Bio-Bio, voted the Communists into first place. Second place in these provinces went to Christian Democracy or the National party, but not to their socialist companions. Conversely, wherever the Socialists came first, the Communists did not come second. This mutual exclusion, which has surfaced in Chilean politics whenever Socialists and Communists joined forces, has often been lamented by both.12 For the remaining parties not much was left. The Radicals got a few deputies in greater Santiago and in some central agricultural provinces, but they lost their bastion province of Chiloé and Coquimbo. The Unified Movement of Popular Action (MAPU) and the Christian Left, which had taken with them 10 deputies when they separated from Christian Democracy

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Elections in Chile

in 1969, were barely able to get two and one, respectively—another example of the shrinking of satellite parties at the expense of their major allies. Once again, the 1973 congressional elections revealed the leftist parties' difficulties with the female electorate. While a whopping 59.6 percent of women voted for the Confederation of Democracy, a meager 38.8 percent chose Popular Unity, quite a decline from the results of the 1971 municipal elections. In the provinces where the opposition scored its highest marks (Valparaiso, urban Santiago, and southern Santiago) female contribution was 57, 56, and 59 percent, respectively. Even in leftist Concepción 54 percent of women voted for the opposition and only 45 percent for Popular Unity. Inversely, in provinces such as Tarapaca, Antofagasta, and Arauco, where the left was strong, the male vote was high: 58, 59, and 63 percent, respectively. Given this active rejection of Popular Unity, already demonstrated by urban women in the election of Salvador Allende, it is not surprising that the first tangible sign of rebellion against the government started in 1973 when women in the urban centers of Valparaiso and Santiago vented their anger at food shortages and the government's discriminating distribution of foodrationing cards in the highly visible "protest of the empty pots" (protesta de las caserolas vacías). This act of defiance, which unleashed an unprecedented wave of protests against Allende's government, was terribly resented by the apologists of the left. The Congress inaugurated in May 1973 reflected the serious cleavages that divided Chilean society as well as the lack of a compromising spirit among the politicians on both sides that aggravated the political situation in the country until the beginning of September 1973. When, on September 11, the armed forces rebelled, the country entered a period in its political life that was without precedent.

Notes 1. For the historical circumstances under which the predictatorship elections were held, the issues at stake, and the political implications of their results, the reader may consult a vast array of interpretative works. A good political analysis of the first 10 years after the coup is Genaro Amagada, 10 Años. Visión crítica (Santiago: Editorial Aconcagua, 1983). The 1980s still await their historian. However, adequate interpretations of the political developments of that decade are contained in Valenzuela and Valenzuela, Military Rule in Chile; and Arturo Valenzuela, "Eight Years of Military Rule," Current History 81, no. 482 (February 1982):64-68. An insightful article about works produced in Chile and abroad dealing with the efforts to return to democracy in the late 1980s is Jorge Nef, "The Trend towards Democratization and Redemocratization in Latin America," pp. 131-153. 2. C. J. Parrish, A. Von Lazar, and J. Tapia Videla, The Chilean Congressional Election of March 7, 1965 (Washington, DC: Institute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems, 1967), p. 26. 3. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 254-256. 4. Daniel Hellinger, "Electoral Changes in the Chilean Countryside: The

The Last Predictatorship

Elections

25

Presidential Elections of 1958 and 1970," Western Political Quarterly 31, no. 2 (June 1978):253-274. 5. Francis, The Allende Victory, pp. 64—65. 6. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, pp. 194, 231. 7. Analysis conducted with the official results of Elección de regidores, marzo 1971 (Santiago: Dirección del Registro Electoral), mimeographed. 8. Raúl Atria, "Características y tendencias de la estructura de partidos en Chile," in Raúl Atria et al., Hacia un nuevo diagnóstico de Chile (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1983), pp. 31-42. 9. Caviedes, Politics of Chile, p. 265. 10. Ibid., p. 272. 11. Ibid., p. 268. 12. Ibid., pp. 168-169, 178, 185, 270.

Depoliticization and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

Among the first commands issued by the junta headed by General Pinochet were the prohibition of public meetings, the restriction of personal movement, the indefinite recess of Congress, and the suspension of political and party activities. Accused of instigating a coup to impose a communist regime or of insubordination against the military order, politicians, former government officials, union activists, media personalities, university teachers, students, and whoever had been associated with the past government were persecuted, incarcerated, and sentenced by military tribunals to terms in prison, relegation, or deportation. In this fashion the party cadres that supported the Popular Unity government were dismantled, and sympathizers sent into hiding or exile, their contacts with the grass roots cut. Certain people in the Christian Democractic party initially approved of the coup, believing that it had prevented a possible civil war between extremists of the left and the united forces of the army and the right, and expecting that the military's presumed lack of political ambition and experience in public affairs would force it back to the barracks. Very soon, however, they realized that some members of the junta—especially General Augusto Pinochet and Admiral José T. Merino—had no intention of relinquishing their newly gained power to civilian authorities, and began to entertain suspicions about the new rulers' political agenda. Christian Democrats' misgivings materialized in June 1974, when the junta appointed General Pinochet chief of state and, in December of the same year, proclaimed him president of the Republic. A de facto state of force had been established, breaking with the entrenched democratic tradition and constitutional precepts that had made Chile the longest-lived democracy in Latin America. The state was run by decree—laws were generated in the State Council, sanctioned by the junta, and signed by General Pinochet as president, without submitting them to legislative scrutiny as in the past. The rationale for retaining political power and monopolizing the administration was that the country still struggled in a state of emergency in which leftist conspiracies (national and international) threatened national stability, making it imperative to eradicate insurrectionists and antisocial individuals before power could be returned to the civilians—not necessarily politicians.1

27

28

Elections in Chile

When, in November 1974, the junta exiled Renán Fuentealba—senator in recess and ex-president of the Christian Democratic party—for publicly declaring that the junta had violated, and was still violating, internationally recognized human rights, the party finally abandoned its initial tolerance and wait-and-see attitude and adopted a stance of sharp criticism of the military rulers. In open conflict with the country's largest party, but confident of the loyalty of his companions in arms, Pinochet could now go ahead and shape the state to his liking without patent opposition. In 1977, arguing that the parties, such as Christian Democracy, that were allowed a certain level of public freedom had abused this "privilege" to defame the present regime, internally as well as abroad, and that they had contributed to the campaign of slander conducted by international Marxism, the junta ordered the dissolution of all existing parties, prohibited public meetings, and assumed the right to censor public communications.2 From the political twilight that had fallen in 1973, the country was plunged into total darkness. Using the Christian Democratic case as an example of the antipatriotic stance of all political parties and lack of ability of their power-hungry leaders, Pinochet—now the indisputable ruler of the junta—proceeded to dismantle the last vestiges of the old democratic order and to install a totally new order in Chile.3 The cornerstone was a free enterprise economy, with elimination of excessive tariffs and privatization of several state-owned companies. Through these measures not only a dated protectionism was abrogated, but the national industries were eclipsed,4 rendering the powerful unions that had supported leftist causes in the past ineffective. In vital enterprises, such as the national copper corporation, military interveners joined the managing cadres, and strikes were forbidden under threat of incarceration and deportation. Thus the productive sector came under Pinochet's control, and workers' movements were neutralized.5 Having cleared the way of all union and political opposition, the junta felt that the tabula rasa in the institutional, economic, and political spheres might well be complemented with a new constitutional order that would embody their conception of the Chilean state. Subsequently, in October 1978 ex-President Jorge Alessandri and a group of conservative jurists were charged with drafting a document to replace the 1925 Constitution, the charter whose alleged shortcomings had, in the eyes of the military, caused the collapse of the political order in 1973. Inconsistent as it may seem—considering the total break with the established legal order in 1973—the call for a plebiscite to approve the text of the new Constitution demonstrated the military's desire to create a semblance of legality and thus justify the present state of force through a certain legal framework. It was also an attempt to humor the Chileans' love for legal formalities, which had not been satisfied since the popular consultation of January 1978. Asking the people for an opinion on a charter

Depoliticization and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

29

they had had no say in was either a Machiavellian act or simply an attempt by the military to gauge their level of acceptance after seven years in power.6 Whatever the motivations, Chileans had the opportunity to go to the polls again and exercise one of the dearest privileges for a people used to political involvement: their right to vote. The Plebiscite on the Constitution of 1980: Voting Again? The guiding concepts of the new Constitution had been drafted by Enrique Ortuzar, minister of justice during the Alessandri administration, and a committee of experts on constitutional law who were very much aware of Pinochet's and the junta's designs on power. In July 1980 the draft was finished and reviewed by Jorge Alessandri as head of the State Council, and then submitted to the junta, whose legal aides edited certain passages to conform to Pinochet's wishes. In total disregard of the political establishment, neither this draft nor its modification was made public, and the prominent leaders of the banned political parties—former president Eduardo Frei among them—had no opportunity to make an input. Furthermore, several alternative drafts that had been elaborated by independent circles partial to the regime, such as the Group of the Twenty-Four and the Center for Liberal Studies, were simply ignored by the junta and the State Council. On August 10 the general announced on national television that the new Constitution, whose contents were to be disclosed within a few days, would be submitted for popular approval on September 11, 1980. The main points of this Constitution included provisions for an eight-year transitional period until the return to free elections, the inclusion of former chiefs of the aimed forces in the Senate, the banning of parties endorsing Marxism, and several restrictions on politicians and union leaders seeking elected offices. The only alternative to this proposed charter was a return to the institutional anarchy and political quagmires created by the 1925 Constitution. A yes vote signified not only the approval of the new Constitution and the concept of the Chilean state as envisaged by the military, but also an indirect endorsement of the development under the Pinochet regime. A no meant a rejection of all the regime stood for, beginning with the Constitution itself. The junta would have to relinquish power as soon as the suspended 1925 Constitution was reinstated, a procedure the military rulers failed to specify. The few weeks given to the opposition to argue against the draft were not enough to come up with constructive alternatives. Thus, on September 11, Chileans had but the following options: either to vote for a document that offered some hope of tackling the military problem in the foreseeable future or to vote for a return to a Constitution that the military had not respected in the past and was not likely to bow to in the future.7

30

Elections in Chile

The results of the plebiscite revealed 67.7 percent for the yes, and 31.1 percent for the no option. Two-thirds of the total votes (6,271,868) endorsed the government proposal; but some interesting regional variations in the overall acceptance emerged as well. While approval reached a maximum of 76.9 percent in the rural region of Araucania and maintained levels above 70 percent in regions with a strong agricultural component, such as Coquimbo, O'Higgins, Maule, and Los Lagos, the opposition was strongest in Magallanes (37.3 percent), Tarapaca (32.9), Antofagasta (33.9), and Bio-Bio (30.4). The highly urban and densely populated regions of Valparaiso and Santiago—in the country's core—approved the Constitution with 64 and 60 percent, respectively.8 In keeping with the tendency of the last presidential and congressional elections, the largest support for the conservative line represented by the government came from the rural and agricultural provinces of central and southern Chile. Deviating from previous patterns, Coquimbo—which had voted overwhelmingly for Allende in 1970 and placed a Communist deputy first in 1973—approved the Constitution: it can be speculated that this change was due to the extraordinary development in export-oriented specialized agriculture (grapes in particular) that had taken place in that region under the new government. Inversely, in the highly urban, mining-oriented, and isolated regions of the extreme north and south— where left-wing parties had mustered numerous followers in the past—the Constitution was received with less enthusiasm. In the two urban regions of central Chile, Valparaiso and Metropolitan Santiago, the draft was certainly well received, but not nearly as well as in the adjacent agricultural regions. Gender differences were significant in this plebiscite: as many as 70.2 percent of women endorsed the new Constitution (versus 25.7 percent against), while only 61 percent of the men approved (34.8 against). The differences also showed regionally: 81 percent of women in Araucania supported the government (15 percent against); in the agricultural regions the percentages revolved around 75 percent. In the core urban regions women backed the Constitution at an average of 68 percent as compared to only 58 percent of the men. With female voters accounting for 51 percent of the national electorate and making up to 53.5 percent of the electorate in populous, urban Valparaiso and Santiago, it seemed that the opposition would have to work hard to attract this elusive clientele. It has been argued repeatedly by Pinochet's adversaries that this plebiscite did not constitute an exercise in the free expression of opinions, since the voters were confronted with no workable alternatives but forced to vote on what the regime offered. Furthermore, the draft of the Constitution was publicized far too late to allow discussion of its implications by people and politicians. Nevertheless, there was a minor opportunity to speak out against the draft—and that is what the advocates of the no vote, headed by former president Frei, attempted in the rally of August 27, 1980, but to little avail. The government had done its best to convince Chileans that this

Depoliticization

and Resistance,

1973 to

1988

31

Constitution truly offered the best possibility of ending the military regime, and the alleged voting irregularities that might have occurred did not alter the general voting tendency. Despite its limitations, the referendum allowed the population's degree of approval for the Pinochet regime to be gauged. Now it became a question of whether the results deviated from the patterns established in the elections of 1970 and 1973, and whether these variations were to be taken seriously by all political parties in their preparation for future electoral strategies.

Party Reconstruction Between 1981 and 1988 When Pinochet had the 1980 Constitution drafted without consulting political parties and leaders, he displayed a total disregard of traditional procedures, and the draft was submitted to the people at a time when the regime was riding a peak: production of agricultural, mining, and fishing products had increased remarkably; cheap imported cars and household goods were replacing inferior national products and satisfying the demands of a growing consumer middle class; a dangerous armed conflict with Argentina had been averted the year before; and the tight state of emergency imposed since 1973 had been somewhat relaxed.9 Countering these positive aspects, the former political parties had fallen into a state of disarray that made them easy targets for Pinochet and his allies. Thus, the approval of the 1980 Constitution by a substantial majority cannot be interpreted only as the result of the obvious manipulations by the military regime, but also as the reflection of an unfavorable perception of the party situation. The Christian Democratic party had seen many of its most active figures exiled. Those who remained in Chile could not agree on how to deal with the military dictatorship. Lukewarm pacifists hoped to engage in conversations with the increasingly aloof and self-righteous Pinochet regime, while pragmatists advocated maintaining an independent and critical stance vis-à-vis the dictator and sought no communication with the government. This latter group did not even contemplate a rapprochement with other parties— particularly with the extreme left—afraid as it was of falling into disrepute and risking ideological contamination. Finally, the most militant members believed that only a broad coalition of all the political antigovernment forces—regardless of ideology and past behavior—could force the military rulers out of power. The adverse results of the 1980 constitutional plebiscite made Christian Democrats aware of the disadvantages of division among the traditional parties.10 Former leading figures of the National party and Radical Democracy— the right wing of the former Radical party—were absorbed into the government and felt comfortable supporting the military regime and sharing in its economic benefits. In later years, especially on the eve of the 1988

32

Elections in Chile

plebiscite, many of the independent personalities of the extreme right joined the National Renovation Movement (RN). Only a handful of hard-core democratic-minded individuals from the right considered siding with the regime a betrayal of the fundamental principles of freedom that were the basis of the National party. They decided to break away from the faction of Nationals led by Patricio Phillips, a supporter of Pinochet, and in this way the National party faction headed by Germán Riesco came into existence.11 The ranks of the left were desolated. In addition to having suffered most from the consequences of Pinochet's violent repression, many of the major parties and factions that had once constituted the formidable Popular Unity coalition had been torn apart by internecine struggles and ideological disputes. Three circumstances explain the extreme physical and ideological fragmentation of the left in the postcoup years. First, with its leaders and most-active militants dead or exiled in Western Europe, Scandinavia, and other Latin American countries (mainly Venezuela and Mexico), the formation of cells was unavoidable and with it the belief of each that it was the one that had preserved the ideals of the old Chilean socialism better than the others. The exiles in Europe profited from the financial resources provided by the Socialist and Social Democratic parties there and met frequently in Europe without the attendance of their "poor" Latin American comrades. Gradually, they evolved into the intelligentsia and leading think tanks. However, their physical isolation and estrangement from the grass roots led many of them to overintellectualize the problems they had confronted while in power with Popular Unity. Their Latin American counterparts began to consider them privileged elites out of touch with the harsh realities and new developments in the homeland. Second, the explanatory theses that began being formulated concerning Popular Unity's failure to avert what they called the counterrevolutionary actions of the military resulted in a search for those among them who were responsible for precipitating the showdown of 1973, producing, of course, countless frictions and unnecessary hostility among the exiles.12 Perhaps more damaging for the unity of the exiled left were the mutual reproaches among the ostracized leaders for the 1973 catastrophe itself. The Communists accused the "petit bourgeois" elements in the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) of overradicalizing the situation prior to the coup and provoking the military reaction. The MIR countered by saying that the "reformism" and "pusillanimous behavior" of the Communists failed to radicalize the masses and bring about an authentic popular revolution. The Socialists, on the other hand, posited that the structural changes in Chile should have been conducted according to the principles of a Latin American popular revolution, and not after the model of Eastern European Communist takeovers. They added that a socialism bred among the people was more attuned with the Latin American character than the stem, unimaginative, and bureaucratic communism imposed from above.13

Depoliticization

and Resistance,

1973 to 1988

33

While these imputations were hurled within the now dispersed forces of the Chilean left, their plans for dealing with the most popular party in Chile—Christian Democracy—went to even greater extremes. For many Socialists a reconciliation and alliance with Christian Democracy was out of the question because, in their view, that party had done nothing for popular democracy since the coup except ingratiate itself with the military rulers and find the fastest possible route back into power. The two leftist groups that had separated from the Christian Democratic party in 1969—MAPU and the Christian Left (IC)—were the most rabid opponents of a common action with their party of origin. Although many MAPU and Christian Left leaders came from wealthy families, they accused Christian Democracy of being a petit bourgeois party, deaf to popular vindications, lacking an antifascist stance, and interested only in restoring the "bourgeois-imperialist dependent state."14 Indeed, after long years of dictatorial penalties there was nothing new under the sun: the diatribes party leaders leveled against each other at the beginning of the 1980s were the same that were rampant during the unfortunate period of polarization from 1970 to 1973. The Pinochet regime's success in the constitutional plebiscite was all this lamentable state of affairs needed in order for pent-up feelings to erupt into constructive action. In April 1979, at the meeting of socialist groups in Ariccia, Italy, some of the participants announced that insisting on the dated postulates and orthodox partisan positions valid until 1973 was deleterious to the further development of the socialist cause, and that it was time for a new socialism to arise and supersede the inflexible, bureaucratic, and often subservient international communism. The new socialism (notice the influence of Eurosocialism in the countries where many of the socialist exiles lived) should reject violence as a means of reaching political goals and pursue the mobilization of progress and welfare-seeking masses in a social environment of freedom and full political awareness.15 Political pluralism and the absence of exclusionary clauses should be utilized in the struggle for redemocratization in Chile, and alliances were to be established with all the progressive forces bent on ending military rule. This realistic, modem view of socialism in the 1980s was not acceptable to all the dispersed socialist groups, and the meeting at Ariccia marked the beginning of a new palpable split within Chilean socialism. It was, however, also the emergence of a movement, the Party for Democracy (PPD), that was to play an important role in bringing together the dispersed followers of Chilean socialism during the 1988 plebiscite and the 1989 elections.16 The third obstacle to the formation of a united front against the Pinochet government were the various strategies proposed to achieve the fall of the military regime, and the lack of political alliances needed for this. The alternatives ranged from violent rebellion and armed confrontation with the police-military state to waiting for a possible slackening in Pinochet's ironfisted rule that would allow the democratic debate and peaceful elections

34

Elections in Chile

to resume. Many hotheaded revolutionaries refused to accept the second alternative (gradualismo), while its supporters feared that the revolutionaries would repeat the imprudence that had led to the armed confrontation with the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie in 1973. Fortunately for the de facto return to democracy a few encouraging developments occurred in Chile and abroad. While the Socialists worked their way toward a possible convergence of splinter groups, the Communists swayed away from a possible reconciliation with Socialists and Christian Democrats. After the 1980 constitutional plebiscite, realizing that the approved draft sought to legitimize the military regime, the Communists abandoned their conformist position and advocated armed rebellion against the Pinochet regime. While this brought about an immediate reconciliation with the critics in the MIR and allowed for the formation of the Movement for Popular Democracy (MDP), the other progressist forces they invited to join in their antifascist crusade did not heed the call, and from the early 1980s on the Communists and their revolutionary allies were isolated from the Christian Democrats and the Socialists. While the Communists with the Movement for Popular Democracy and the Socialists with the Socialist Convergence (CS) were hastily creating cores of attraction to rally splintered groups of activists, Christian Democracts formed the Democratic Alliance (AD) to which they invited the PPD led by Ricardo Lagos.17 All these active bloc formation attempts were stimulated in the early 1980s by a massive financial scandal that diminished confidence not only in the government's economic abilities, but also in the moral integrity of the junta. Economic malaise and the ensuing resurgence of inflation, low productivity, and unemployment stirred up popular unrest, to which the government responded, once again, with the repressive measures it had conveniently suspended as the 1980 plebiscite approached. Thus, while the Pinochet government descended toward a low point in popularity, the parties benefited from this situation to accelerate their rebuilding process.18 There were still several years until the 1988 plebiscite in which the people would be able to decide whether they wanted Pinochet as a presidential candidate, and in these years much could happen. Indeed, much did after 1986: an economic bonanza similar to that which had preceded the 1980 plebiscite returned, and with it the image of Pinochet as an efficient ruler. Moreover, an attempt against his life in 1986 gave the government enough ammunition to claim that the partisan opposition was ready to use violence to disrupt the peaceful development toward full democracy, and that the left was a haven for assassins and Marxist extremists. With the country's economy in full swing again, and confident of support from large segments of the people, the government in 1987 authorized the public activities of political parties. Only the Communist party was still barred because it subscribed to Marxism, class struggle, and armed revolution, and was associated with the Patriotic Front Manuel

Depoliticization

and Resistance,

1973 to 1988

35

Rodriguez guerrilla movement that since 1981 had systematically killed members of the police and the armed forces, and sabotaged buses, trains, power lines, roads, and pipelines across the country.19 The parties that were rapidly consolidating decided wisely to distance themselves from the terrorists, particularly now that the military regime—riding a new wave of popularity and economic prosperity20—gave all indications that the call for the announced plebiscite was imminent.

The Opposition Rises: The 1988 Plebiscite In view of the facts that the plebiscite of October 1988 definitely marked a turning point in recent Chilean free elections and that its results shaped the political scene, preparing the country for the presidential and parliamentary elections of 1989, an analysis of this contest sheds additional light on emerging patterns of voting behavior after 15 years of political suspension and helps explain the strategies of the forces that entered the 1989 elections. The wide interest is not unwarranted, as the event was the first unhindered attempt to gauge the degree of support that Pinochet had secured in the decade and a half since the last electoral contest, the parliamentary election of March 4, 1973. The

Setting

A provisory clause in the 1980 Constitution stated that the current president, General Augusto Pinochet, would hold that position for a period of eight years; thereafter, presidential elections had to be called. If the incumbent president wanted to continue in office for another eight years, he would have to seek popular consent through a plebiscite, which is what Pinochet did in July 1988 when he announced that the plebiscite would be held on October 5. 21 The preparations for the contest were hasty. Pinochet's candidacy was sponsored by the RN, the conservative National party, and the Independent Democratic Union (UDI). On the side of the opposition, 16 traditional and newly formed political parties rallied together, from the dissident faction of the rightist National party, headed by Germán Riesco, to the leftist MIR, now called MIR Renovado. The senior members in this coalition were the Christian Democratic party, the PPD, the Socialist party, the Historic Socialist party, the Communist Party of Chile, and the Social Democratic Radical party (PRSD). These groups brought to the alliance not only good grass-roots followings but also experience in how to exploit to their advantage the programmatic weaknesses, campaign flaws, and past negative records of the Pinochet regime. Even before the official call for the plebiscite the traditional parties had exerted enormous public pressure to hasten this

36

Elections in Chile

event and to force Pinochet to submit his bid to the people's decision. 22 Unprecedentedly, Pinochet's supporters campaigning in favor of an affirmative vote and the joint forces of the opposition who vied for the no vote used the latest techniques in mass persuasion permitted by Chile's strict electoral rules. In the months preceding the plebiscite the private as well as state-owned television channels made available 20 minutes of their prime time to broadcast alternately the central issues of each side's campaign.23 In a manner reminiscent of the free political game of pre-Pinochet times, Chilean voters were bombarded with two opposing interpretations of the last 15 years and were offered the alternative of either retaining Pinochet as president until 1996 or replacing him with a candidate from the opposition. The outcome of the polling, open and honest as it was, expressed the sovereign verdict of the people. The

Outcome

As promised by the general and condoned by the presence of international observers, the plebiscite was held on October 5, in full observance of the established voting rules. As the day drew to a close, it became clear that the majority of the voters had favored the no option. Early on October 6 the subsecretary of the Ministry of the Interior had announced that of the 7,216,391 registered voters, 3,945,865 (54.68 percent) had decided against, and 3,106,009 (43.04 percent) had voted for Pinochet. By a margin of 839,766 votes the general was barred from another term in office. 24 In Chile polling and ballot counting is conducted separately for men and women, allowing for interpretation of the results under gender considerations. Nationwide, female voters were more numerous than male voters—51.64 percent versus 48.36 percent—but regionally the distribution favored male voters. Men prefered the no option by 58.4 percent, while the yes obtained only 39.5 percent of their vote. The difference shrank to 51.1 percent for the no versus 46.3 percent for the yes option among women. Blank and nullified votes were 2.28 percent of the total. The results of the 1988 plebiscite were issued at regional level based on the 13 regions into which the country had been reorganized in 1976, and this is also the level at which they will be discussed. In Table 3.1, regions are ordered from north to south, with the Metropolitan Region (MR) occupying the central geographical position and also dominating the country demographically with 39.7 percent of the electorate. Regional and gender variations of the no vote. Nationwide the negative vote exceeded the affirmative by 11.6 percent, but there are noticeable regional variations of this winning margin whose ecological interpretations are based on the results of the factor analysis to be detailed in Chapter 5. The rejection of Pinochet was strongest in the urban-mining region of

Depoliticization

37

and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

Table 3.1 Results of the 1988 Plebiscite by Administrative Region Percentage of NO YES National Voters Percentage Percentage I II ni IV V MR VI VII VIH IX X XI XII

Tarapaca Antofagasta Atacama Coquimbo Valparaíso Santiago O'Higgins Maule Bio-Bio Araucania Los Lagos Aysén Magallanes

2.4 3.0 1.6 3.6 10.7 39.7 5.3 6.3 12.9 5.7 6.7 0.5 1.2

53.6 58.8 54.5 52.3 55.8 57.7 54.7 50.1 54.0 44.8 49.0 48.8 56.5

43.4 38.1 42.5 44.6 41.7 40.2 43.1 47.8 43.7 52.7 48.8 49.0 41.5

NO Men 56.6 62.4 59.2 57.9 59.8 61.7 59.1 54.4 58.0 48.5 52.1 49.5 56.3

YES

Women 50.5 55.1 49.6 47.0 52.3 54.3 50.2 45.8 50.1 41.2 45.8 48.1 56.7

Men 41.1 35.3 38.2 39.3 38.1 36.6 38.8 43.7 39.9 49.4 45.9 48.6 42.0

Women 45.6 41.1 46.9 49.6 45.0 43.4 47.5 52.0 47.4 56.0 51.8 49.6 40.1

Note: N of all voters = 7,216,391. N of those casting a no vote = 3,945,865 (54.7 percent). N of those casting a yes vote = 3,106,099 (43.2 percent). Blank votes numbered 71,334 (1 percent), and 93,093 (1.3 percent) votes were nullified. Percentages in the table do not add up to 100 because blank and nullified votes are not counted.

Antofagasta (Figure 3.1), in the heavily populated and urban Santiago MR, in the contiguous urban-industrial region of Valparaiso (Figure 3.2), and in Magallanes in the extreme south (Figure 3.4). The closest resemblance to the national average of the no vote occurred in the rest of the mining regions of the north (Tarapaca and Atacama), in agricultural O'Higgins, and in agricultural-industrial Bio-Bio. Moderate support for the no vote is seen in agricultural-mining Coquimbo (Figure 3.1) and in agricultural Maule (Figure 3.3). The advantage for the no vote was minimal in the agricultural-rural southern region of Los Lagos. The yes alternative was successful only in underdeveloped rural Araucania and, by a slight margin, in the sparsely populated region of Aysén. The rejection of Pinochet came from the most urbanized, industrialized, and densely populated regions of central Chile, from the mining regions of the extreme north, from the extreme south, and from the industrial enclave of Bio-Bio. In the regions with higher agricultural activity and rural populations the no support declined and actually inverted in the country's most rural regions of Araucania and Aysén (see Figure 3.3 and 3.4). The results of the plebiscite revealed again the MR's enormous influence on national elections. The no alternative in Santiago overpowered the support for Pinochet by 501,299 votes (17.5 percent), a number that sufficiently neutralized the yes vote in other regions. This had implications for the forthcoming presidential election of 1989, as the thrust of the opposition, as well as of the Pinochet supporters, was directed at the voters of Santiago,

Elections in Chile

38

while the marginal regions of the country were neglected. That electoral strategies should not promote such regional voters' cleavages is a lesson that should have been learned from the 1970 election when Jorge Alessandri concentrated on winning the plurality in Metropolitan Santiago but found that this victory did not compensate for his losses elsewhere. Instead,

Figure 3.1 Regional Outcome of the 1988 Plebiscite, Northern Regions

Northern Regions

Tarapaca

Antofagasta

Atacama

Percentage of Votes Cast in Favor of the Winning Option

48.0 - 50.9 51.0-55.9 56.0 - 60.9 Coquimbo

61.0-68.9

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and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

39

40

Elections

in

Chile

Figure 3.4 Régional Outcome of the 1988 Plébiscité, Southern Régions

Southern Regions

Aysén

Percentage of Votes Cast in Favor of the Winning Option

48.0 - 50.9 51.0-55.9 56.0 - 60.9 61.0-68.9

Magallanes

Salvador Allende won the presidency with the overwhelming support of the provinces in the north and south, and thus became the first candidate to win that office without having captured Santiago. 25 While in the nation as a whole the male vote was decisive for the triumph of the no option—by a ratio of 1.3 to one (660,821 votes)—women favored the opposition at a rate of only 1.1 to one (178, 945 votes). This is an advantage for the no vote of 18.9 percent among men versus 5.7 percent among women, respectively. In a regional differentiation (Figure 3.5) the gender variability of the two alternatives followed the same patterns as in the last free elections. The differential support for the no option was very marked in the northern regions of the country where women endorsed that option

Depoliticizaiion and Resistance, 1973 to 1988

41

Figure 3.5 The 1988 Plebiscite's No Vote by Region and Gender

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